Re: Virtual fabric for Ficon

>> Can somebody tell me if virtual fabric a solution to solve this issue ?

Virtual Fabrics are not supported on 48000 models.

You have only two options:

1. Use trunking. It will distribute your load among your ISLs at the frame level. Requires a license.

2. Upgrade to a 8gb platform: 5100, 5300 or DCX and firmware 6.4. In this environment you can enable Lossless DLS (used for mainframe environments) with DPS enabled and also you can use virtual fabrics to separate mainframe from open systems.

Re: Virtual fabric for Ficon

2. Upgrade to a 8gb platform: 5100, 5300 or DCX and firmware 6.4. In this environment you can enable Lossless DLS (used for mainframe environments) with DPS enabled and also you can use virtual fabrics to separate mainframe from open systems.

I have still a question : On our 48000, we have mainframe and open systems and we don't use virtual fabrics. On our new DCX where I want to enable DLS and DPS, can you tell me if I have to use virtual fabric to separate mainframe and open systems ? I mean, it it an obligation or is it better to use it ?

Re: Virtual fabric for Ficon

It is not an obligation. But it has a great advantage to do it this way, for example you may want to use IOD in one fabric and not in other. Some other specific fabric features that may be desired for mainframe environment can be set without impact for open systems and viceversa.

FICON is quite strict when it comes to FC addressing and that addressing mode is recommended when ficon is used withing a VF. By default, when VF are configured, the 10-bit addressing mode is used (the switch could use 2 bits from the AL_PA to address a port), in order to support more and more ports in the blades. This mode could be problematic when dealing with FICON environments due to the way Mainframe works, that is why 256-area addressing mode is recommended, because it uses only 16 bits to address a port.

These kind of questions are very well explained in the Brocade Admin guide.

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